Wednesday 20 November 2013

Chronicles: Prague Final Trailer

I have been busy. Very very busy. I still am, in fact, only tiny bit less these days. However, I decided to stop being negligent to this blog of mine and post a rather huge news.

CHRONICLES: PRAGUE is finally finished and ready to be released. The official release date is set to the 29th of November, exactly 635 years after the death of Charles IV., the story's main protagonist.

http://chronicles-app.com/
http://www.facebook.com/ChroniclesApp
http://twitter.com/chroniclestour



Hope you like the trailer and rest assured, it all looks well in the App. If you want to support us, check the App Store on November 29 and buy it! We would appreciate your support a lot... - MK

Thursday 15 August 2013

Chronicles: Prague Teaser

Recently we released another short teaser for Chronicles. The finish line of the project is finally near and soon, we shall release a full-length trailer. Stay tuned.


- MK

Monday 27 May 2013

Chronicles: Prague Reveal

I am slowly starting to reveal our new commercial project. Stay tuned for more.

"Chronicles is an interactive walking tour in the city of Prague. Take your iPhone or iPad and explore the history by watching an animated story. Watch all the episodes at the places where it all happened - in the streets of Prague."




- MK


Friday 10 May 2013

Chronicles WIP

A first picture from a secret project I have been working on for the last several months.















Stay tuned :-)
MK

Tuesday 23 April 2013

Armies of the Fallen FAQ

Almost every day I receive emails and comments asking one of the questions answered bellow. I hope you will find this article useful :-)

Important links:

What is it all about?
The story continues several years after the events of Shadows of the Past. Betrayed by his Master, the main hero Fallen is now leading a revolution against Master's Empire. Together with his followers, who once suffered the same fate, they march across the galaxy with a sole purpose in their hearts - to end Master's rule once and for all.

For more info about the story click here.
For more info about the characters click here.
To watch Ep. 1: Power of the Dark Side click here.
To watch Ep. 2: Shadows of the Past click here.
To watch the AotF concept teaser click here.
To watch the AotF Retrospective video click here.















How long is it going to be?
We still can't give you an exact number, but we aim at 30-45 minutes.



Is it a part of Lucas' Star Wars universe?
No, this is a parallel SW galaxy, ruled by a single Sith Master. The Jedi Order is extinct and Fallen's forces are the closest thing to "good guys" you get.















Are there going to be real actors or is it all CG?
We want to use as much CG as possible, for the main characters, however, we plan to use real actors with digital doubles.



Why create new teasers, why not create the whole movie?
My vision is very ambitious. In fact, some might call it insane. At this point I don't even know if everything written in the script is possible. But with each new teaser, we learn more and more things and break more and more boundaries. In the first one I showed the basic concept. In the upcoming Invasion teaser, we tackle the huge space battle scenes. After that, we will focus on the animation and the creation of huge armies fighting on foot on the Akuss' surface. Each new teaser brings us closer to the final product, and nothing will come to waste...















When is it coming out?
When it's done.
We all have our day jobs and some of us are still students. Free time is a rare commodity, but we do our best to deliver all the new content as soon as possible. Sometimes, though, it is simply not possible and delays occur. Pleaser, bear with us... :-)





Why don't you try Kickstarter?
As mentioned before, we all have our jobs we can't really give up now and starting a Kickstarter project would mean a huge responsibility and we probably wouldn't be able to keep up.

It doesn't mean, however, that we won't try to start a Kickstarter campaign sometime in the future...
















How many people are there working on the project?
I do the main portion of work (concept art, script, 3D, 2D, compositing, editting), other artists help as much as they can. Scott Needs delivered some wonderful ship models, Scott Richard created gorgeous matte paintings of the planets Raffia and Akuss, Benjamin Delaey helps extensively on the creation of Akuss surface, Fynn Große-Bley is responsible for character sculpting, Kyle Fox helped with UVs, Petr Utinek helped with modelling. We have of course Tomas Zemler for the music, Mikkel Nielsen for sound design, and our awesome VO team, led by Austin McComb (Fallen) and Ed Khoo (Master).



What software do you use?
We use a wide variety of tools. My personal workflow is Photoshop for all things 2D, Maya and ZBrush for 3D and After Effects for compositing, with Premiere taking care of the editing.  The rest of the team uses also 3DS Max, Blender and other tools.















How do I start my own project such as this? How did you learn all this?
I can't speak for other members of the team, but in my case, it was simple. LOTS of video tutorials. Buy Gnomon DVDs and subscribe to Digital Tutors. For After Effects, learn from Andrew Kramer. That's pretty much all you need. Apart from patience, of course.














Do you plan to sell any DVDs?
We don't plan to sell AotF - it is a fan project from fans for fans and we don't plan to charge any money for our videos. Everything will be free on Youtube. We might however create DVD or BR discs eventually and charge for the cost of the discs and shipping.












If you have more questions to ask, please, ask them here. Thank you and stay tuned! The Invasion is coming.

- Martin Klekner, the director of AotF




Monday 25 March 2013

AotF "Invasion Teaser" Coming Soon

I did it again. At the very last moment, I decided to extend the new teaser so that it's truly worth it. It's going to take a little longer, but... just wait to see those space battle scenes in action :-)















- MK

Wednesday 6 March 2013

Sunday 10 February 2013

Armies of the Fallen Progress

Soo, great news! I was finally able to rig the model of Fallen and make it move. It is probably my 10th attempt and it feels great to have finally succeeded at it. The skinning needs to be polished and the model itself needs new textures, but cool stuff can be done with it already.















And also, I did some new environment tests for the Akuss surface and added models from Benjamin Delaey - the statue and horns.











Other team members are also working hard on the project.

Scott Richard did this wonderful matte painting of Raffia, Fallen's home planet.














Fynn Große-Bley, our new sculptor, also has a great progress on the Fallen model.















And we have a new Sound FX guy, Mikkel Nielsen. Check his website here!
It is so great to see the progress we all make. Stay tuned for more :-)


- MK

Friday 25 January 2013

AotF: Piranha Model Finished!

After several weeks of hard work, the modelling of the Piranha ship by is finished, all done by Scott Needs. Now to the texturing and animating :-)



Friday 18 January 2013

Armies of the Fallen Official Website

The official website for Armies of the Fallen is now live! Awesome work by our new team member, Christian Fröhlich.

http://armiesofthefallen.eu/

Pls, help us share the project with the world by reposting it wherever you can :-)






















Monday 7 January 2013

AotF: Starship Concepts

So these are the latest starship concepts I've done for Armies of the Fallen. All of the final modelling is being done by Scott Needs, an amazing CG artist.


















- MK

Friday 4 January 2013

AotF: Raffia

A new matte painting for Armies of the Fallen. Raffia, Fallen's safe haven.


Master's betrayal left Fallen weak and broken. He needed a place to hide and gather his strength, a safe haven. Raffia was perfect. Located at the very edge of the known galaxy, hidden deep in countless star nebulas, it offered a perfect opportunity to disappear from Master's sight.

Here, he gathered his first followers, young men and women with similar experiences, cheated with false promises and then tossed away when no longer needed. Here his plan for revenge was born.

- MK

Wednesday 2 January 2013

Maya Fire Footage


So one day I decided I no longer want to rely completely on Action Essentials 2... It's a wonderful collection of stock footage, but Andrew's flames just aren't big enough for my needs anymore. So I built myself some nice blazing inferno in Maya. I can't wait to use it in Armies of the Fallen.
















- MK